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12 rules for schools: Rule 6 Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world

2018-02-08T12:47:41+00:00February 7th, 2018|Featured|

This is the sixth installment in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. You can read the rest of posts in this series here.  Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, [...]

“Anyone who disagrees with me is a neoliberal racist!”

2018-02-05T12:08:49+00:00February 4th, 2018|Featured|

I've spent much of last year or so feeling baffled at the unpleasant depths to which debate in education has sunk. The approach to which I've always tried to aspire is to advance an argument based on the quality of an idea, and to discuss my (inevitably partial) view of the evidence supporting the that idea. I can often descend to dogmatism but never, I hope, do I completely insulate myself against reality. When someone engages with my argument and advances a convincing counter-argument, I try hard to suppress the negative effects of cognitive dissonance and think about their views. Sometime [...]

What every teacher needs to know about teaching for social justice

2019-10-29T09:05:45+00:00February 3rd, 2018|Featured|

The marvellous Teach Secondary magazine continue to publish my articles on a regular basis but don't hold that against them; there are loads of other excellent reasons for reading. Here's a link to my latest. The world is not a fair place. Some children are born into advantage; others are not. Many children in many schools have been raised in an environment where there is access to books, where their parents value reading and education, where there are middle class dinner table conversations about current affairs and abstract concepts. Such young people have an educational advantage from the start – this [...]

12 Rules for Schools – Rule 5 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

2018-02-27T10:07:54+00:00February 2nd, 2018|behaviour, Featured|

Welcome to the fifth installment in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. All the posts in this series are collected here. This is not intended to be an accurate summary of Peterson’s views, it is merely what I reckon. Navigating the world is tough enough when people like you. It's nigh on impossible if everyone dislikes you. Peterson explains that not teaching children how to make friends and avoid irritating others is the cardinal sin of parenting. No one will love your children like you do, so, if you struggle with some of [...]

12 Rules for schools – Rule 4 Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today

2018-07-23T10:03:45+01:00January 26th, 2018|Featured|

This is the fourth in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. All the posts in this series are collected here. This is not intended as an accurate summary of Peterson’s views, it is merely what I reckon. The idea that we should only compare ourselves against a personal yardstick is good advice. As Max Ehrmann says in Disiderata, "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." Who wants to be vain or bitter? But, as with much good advice, [...]

12 Rules for schools – Rule 3 Make friends with people who want the best for you

2018-01-24T21:45:50+00:00January 24th, 2018|Featured|

This is the third in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. I'm linking all the posts in this series here. This is not intended as an accurate summary of Peterson's views, it is merely my hot take. Not everyone is well disposed towards us. The higher you strive, the more you seek to put your stamp upon the world, the more likely you are to attract the opprobrium of the envious and bitter. This isn't a lot of fun, but it can be managed. Usually such people broadcast their antipathy in no uncertain terms [...]

Good intentions are not good enough

2018-01-23T17:04:18+00:00January 23rd, 2018|Featured|

I genuinely believe that everyone involved in education is well-intentioned. If making money was the prime motivation I'm sure we could find other, more profitable areas to operate in. Like international arms trading. Everyone wants the best for young people, but, of course, there's little agreement on what this should look like. Human beings are tribal. We band together with those who share our ideological preferences and make those with whom we disagree the enemy. This makes a certain kind of sense. If someone dissents from our well-considered opinion about how children ought to be educated we're prone to engaging in [...]

12 rules for schools – Rule 2 Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping

2018-01-23T15:33:40+00:00January 22nd, 2018|Featured|

This is the second in a series of posts adapting Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules of Life to the context of eduction. You can find my thoughts on Rule 1 here. Please note, Peterson talks about a lot of other stuff - much of it religious - which I'm largely ignoring. This is just my partial take. According to this study, one third of every prescription a doctor writes goes unfilled, and, over half of those people who do collect their medication won't take it correctly. Why would this be? Why would some one who felt ill enough to visit their doctor not then [...]

12 Rules for schools – Rule 1 Stand up straight with your shoulders back

2018-02-26T11:36:05+00:00January 21st, 2018|Featured|

I've just finished the Canadian academic and controversialist, Jordan Peterson's book, 12 Rules of Life: An antidote to chaos and my over-riding impression is that it's an important, erudite and thoughtful addition to the library of anyone interested in philosophy, ethics, religion, literature, psychology and the history of thought. But it's an often challenging and occasionally irritating at times. I guarantee that Peterson will say things which will annoy you. Don't let tis put you off. His wisdom and compassion underlie even his most provocative and incendiary ideas. His 12 rules are as follows: Rule 1 Stand up straight with your shoulders [...]

Can we develop a ‘love of learning’?

2022-04-02T15:29:13+01:00January 13th, 2018|Featured|

The scholar and the world! The endless strife, The discord in the harmonies of life! The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books; The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain! Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus Why are some people healthier than others? This might sound like a bit of silly question. The answer is surely obvious: some people eat better and exercise more than others. But is that all there is to it? Couldn't 'healthiness' be attributed, at least in part, to our genes? Might some of us be born with a greater capacity for health than others? We know that various physical traits - eye and hair colour, height, weight, certain specific genetic disorders - absolutely are inherited, so why not a general factor of healthiness? [...]

Teaching to make children cleverer: Part 1

2018-01-07T15:15:49+00:00January 5th, 2018|Featured|

I've argued previously that the aim of education ought to be to make children cleverer. If I'm right, then not only is it desirable, it's also possible to achieve this end. But before we can do so, we need to make sure we have a solid understanding of precisely which aspects of intelligence we might be able to boost. In What Is Intelligence? James Flynn suggests a number of factors that make up an individual's intelligence: Mental acuity - the ability to come up with solutions to problems about which we have no prior knowledge Habits of mind - the ways [...]

The best books I’ve read this year

2017-12-06T17:30:07+00:00December 6th, 2017|Featured, reading|

Here follows a list of the books that I've most enjoyed and which have most affected my thinking this year. I've presented them in alphabetical order so as not to have to make choices about which were best: if they're on the list then I think they're worth reading. I note, with some shame, that yet again I've gone mainly for books by white men. Please don't hold that against me or them. I never consciously make choices about what to read based on the physical characteristics of the writer, but am nevertheless aware that what we choose to read shapes [...]

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